Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Two Years

Two years ago from today, on April 19th 2009, Kel passed away — a little more than two months after his 13th birthday.

It was an untimely death. It bereaved him of a whole life that still longed to be lived, and took away all the perspectives that he hoped to realize, of finding new happiness, and his place in this world, being together with people who loved and respected him.

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Looking back, I can only marvel on what happened while Kel and I knew each other. There was stuff going on in Kel's life that breaks your heart only hearing about it. Kel had to live with these things, every single day.

And yet, he did not give up:

"I'll make it, you'll see!"

This was his trademark sentence, and he really meant what he said!

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Allow me to just tell you about one example:

Here we have a 13 year old boy, who had massive problems at school (how can you focus on learning, if the mortal fear of being bullied overshadows every single of your days?).

But still, this boy asked me to teach him German, here in our messages on YouTube, because he wanted to speak a few sentences to his favourite teacher, who was of part German origin — to surprise her, and hopefully make her happy with this.

So we studied: Every day, words and sentences, and how to pronounce them — and although the German language is tough, Kel put a lot of effort in it and was a great student!

Finally, he actually greeted his teacher at the beginning of class in a perfect German sentence, and she got tears in her eyes, hugged him and said "You just made my day!"

And Kel was beaming from joy and could not wait to tell me about it ...

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I have many of such happy little stories, that Kel would tell me about, or to which I even became witness myself.

All the happy stories, the sad stories ... All the things Kel thought and said and did that made me so proud of him ... His courage, his resolve in spite of being terrified ... His empathy, and his warm-hearted caring soul ...

By all of them, I am the keeper of a treasure vault full of precious gems: My memories of Kel, of him while he was still with us. And these treasures become even more brilliant and shiny and precious, when I am able to share them with others.

This is why I am happy and appreciate every single visitor of this channel, every subscriber, everyone who watches a video and possibly even leaves a comment, or sends me a message. You are precious, because you care for Kel — for a boy who can not be with us any more, but who now found what he yearned for so much: Friends, who respect him, who care for him, and who love him just for what he is.